The
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, says plans have been
concluded to sign visa-free pacts with a bloc of eight African countries
to promote economic partnership on the continent.
Onyeama
announced this in Abuja on Tuesday at a news confernce to mark one year
of President Mohammadu Buhari’s Administration. The minister, who did
not disclose the names of the countries making up the bloc, noted with
concern that trading among African countries had been very low.
He,
however, said that with the new idea by the President Mohammadu Buhari
led administration, “it is expected that there will be upsurge in
economic activities. “ Africa is the centrepiece of our foreign policy
but it is a paradox that as a Nigerian, you cannot go to an African
country without a visa unlike what is obtainable in Western Europe.
“To
address this as a leader in the continent, the country is at a point of
introducing an initiative to promote African trade as part of the
country’s foreign policy of Africa as the centrepiece”, he said. Onyeama
said Nigeria was trying to come up with an initiative, like the one in
Western Europe where one could enter any sister country without a visa.
According to him, what we are trying to do at the ministry is to promote
visa-free, free movement of business people.
“We
want to start with about eight countries or see if they come up as a
group of eight countries. At the presidential level, they agreed to
that, and signed up to free movement. “If we can achieve that within a
year, then other countries may want to join and we believe this is a
better way to go than institutional ECOWAS etc, as countries take so
long to ratify agreements.
“We
believe we can just start off, eight countries and they agree among
themselves, then others will come in,” he said. Onyeama also added that
it would not help if the continent continued to export just raw
materials to developed nations.
He
said the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment was working towards
enhancing doing business with ease in Nigeria. Onyeama said the
ministry was working with the immigration to see rise in the number of
visa issued to businessmen and investors
“It
is one of the cardinal strategies for the Ministry of Industry, Trade
and Investment to facilitate investors doing business in Nigeria”, he
said. Onyeama said the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had
been mandated to ensure that there was reduction in the time it took to
register companies.
